Today’s Action: Raise the national minimum wage

Could you live on it? Do you live on it? The current national minimum wage is $7.25/hour…more accurately known as “starvation wage.”

A majority of Democrats in both chambers of Congress (though we still need more!) are cosponsoring the Raise the Wage Act of 2019, which would bring the national minimum wage to $15/hour by 2024 and keep pace with inflation thereafter.

If passed, the new law would raise wages for 40 million Americans, about 30% of the total workforce, including 40% of African Americans and one-third of Latinx workers, and put as much as $144 billion back into the economy.

Three out of five minimum wage jobs are held by women, including 6 million mothers. 9 million children with at least one working parent still live below the poverty line. This act would bring that number down dramatically.

If you currently work for less than $15/hour and are living the painful truth that the minimum wage hasn’t budged since 2009, we don’t need to convince you of the benefits of this act.

If you work above $15/hour, you’ll still see the impact too. Beyond the massive ethical implications of guaranteeing living wages for all, lifting families out of poverty means fewer of your tax dollars spent on social services, empowering and uplifting poorer populations, and more money sent back into our economy by new spenders.

It’s a win all-around, and a national movement that’s been in the works for years. Let’s see it across the finish line.

Today’s Action: Support climate change action at a state and individual level

The United Nations recently released heartbreaking news: approximately one million species of animals and plants are at risk of extinction due to human impact. This includes the effects of climate change, as well as changes in land and sea use, hunting and poaching, pollution, and more.

Meanwhile, at a summit of Arctic nations earlier this month, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo torpedoed a joint statement over his objections to labeling climate change as a problem. In fact, he welcomed the warming of the earth, saying the melting ice caps could open new trade routes. Our country’s leadership is in complete denial while our planet’s biodiversity is at extreme risk.

Although Trump has pulled the United States out of the Paris climate agreement, many states are taking charge to protect our planet. The U.S. Climate Alliance is a coalition of 24 state governors committed to uploading the standards of the Paris agreement even as Trump and the GOP refuse.

Consider this: the second-biggest contributor to greenhouse gasses and leading contributor to impacted land use is raising animals for meat and dairy. As individuals, we can make immediate impact in reversing climate change and protecting biodiversity by reducing or eliminating our meat and dairy consumption.

Can you commit to reducing your meat and dairy consumption by 25%? 75%? 100%? Affecting the markets we influence is one of the best ways to shift the economy that contributes to climate change.

We have only a short time left to solve this global issue before the consequences become disastrous. It’s time to reach across the table to find tangible solutions and push our politicians – and ourselves – like we’ve never pushed before.

This is the third time Trump has tried to make Barry Myers administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Myers is the former chief executive of his family’s company, AccuWeather, a for-profit business in direct competition with NOAA…except that it uses NOAA data to make its profits. In fact, Myers has spent decades trying to block NOAA from releasing weather information to the public…because he wants to charge you for it instead.

NOAA, by the way, is funded by taxpayers…so the weather updates and storm warnings should absolutely should be free to the public. But Myers’ conflict of interest was not even addressed in Senate committee, where Republicans pushed him through without a debate.

The other BIG issue not addressed in committee: AccuWeather’s serious #MeToo problem with sexual harassment.

After promising his followers he’d ‘drain the swamp,’ Trump has succeeded in making the swamp stinkier than ever. Myers is the next in line of Trump nominations who favor privatization of public resources…another rich friend trying to get richer off the backs of taxpayers.

And his Trumpian history with women is appalling. Myers’ company has paid $290,000 to a whopping 39 women who reported sexual harassment at AccuWeather. This not only needs to be opposed, but elevated with the full volume of the #MeToo movement – not just for the sake of those women, but future NOAA employees facing the same hostile environment under Myers’ leadership.

Today’s Action: Stop Trump’s sabotage of food stamps, Medicaid, Head Start, and more

In the GOP’s continued war against the poor and working class, Trump has declared his next move: adjusting inflation rates to lower the poverty line, which is the baseline measurement for eligibility on social services like food stamps, Medicaid, Head Start, and more. This plan arrives simultaneously with the rollout of work requirements and budget cuts for those same lifesaving programs.

By lowering the poverty line, Trump would be able to kick millions of people off assistance programs with the stroke of a pen.

With the current poverty line set at $26,000 for a family of four, folks at that income level are barely making ends meet — at best. And in a country that happily spends $700 billion a year for our military budget, making a $26,000 annual income for four even tighter is gut-wrenchingly greedy.

The “chained CPI” is Trump’s chosen mechanism to lower the poverty line. The idea is that as prices go up, consumers will simply find a cheaper alternative. It’s a flawed methodology… Or let’s just say it. It’s completely bananas.

But the real issue is that this type of measuring will immediately lower the poverty line, thereby bumping millions off of government support programs…and the number dropped will increase each year.

Trump’s proposed change is unacceptable, and may literally result in driving families out of their homes and to sickness or death with the loss of supplemented food and healthcare access.

For years, the GOP has seen declines in the popular vote. And instead of, you know, adjusting their policies to win back voters, in 2010 they instead turned to strategic and unconstitutional gerrymandering – aggressively redrawing legislative district lines to give themselves disproportional edge.

Republican Gerrymandering outside of your own state affects you a lot, no matter where you live. For example, in 2018, North Carolina Republicans won 50.3% of the popular vote for House seats – but kept control of a disproportionate 10 out of 13 seats (76.9%) in the House of Representatives, stealing three Democratic seats. The state leadership draws the district lines for those seats, but we all feel national results.

The courts are slowly tackling some of this GOP manipulation, but not all of it. That’s why it’s vital we do everything we can to register every single Democratic voter in affected states – because electing more Democrats at the state level is our best way to ensure fair Congressional District lines.

Some states like Washington and California generally vote broadly Democratic, while others are solidly red (for now…). However, seven red/purple states could be blue, where voters exist to defeat the GOP *if* we get them registered and committed to voting.

The seven target gerrymandered states are: Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin. Many of these states may be familiar to you already as historic ideological battlegrounds…while others like Texas and Georgia are signals of changing progressive times!

Writing letters to unregistered voters is one of the most effective AND convenient methods to building Democratic voting blocs…and the good folks of Vote Forward make it easy.

The House votes this Thursday for LGBTQ+ rights. Because, while over 70 countries around the world offer anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ individuals at a national level, the United States is not one of them. And with Trump continuing his campaign for “religious freedom” AKA the freedom to discriminate, the LGBTQ+ community needs and deserves protection fast.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects a lot of underrepresented groups from discrimination – based on race, skin color, sex, religion, and national origin. However, the landmark legislation does not include sexual orientation or gender identity, leaving many LGBTQ+ communities without a shield from the whims of bigots.

Here’s a second “70” fact: it’s the percentage of Americans who support the Equality Act, which would finally provide federal protections for LGBTQ+ people.

30 States have no anti-discrimination laws for sexual orientation or gender identity, home to approximately 50% of LGBTQ+ Americans. In these states, LGBTQ+ individuals are subject to harassment, losing their jobs, being denied housing or entering businesses, and more.

And, the threat is very real: two-thirds of LGBTQ+ Americans report experiencing discrimination in their lifetimes. The Equality Act won’t eliminate all hate crimes and discrimination — but it will certainly prevent some, and provide the LGBTQ+ community with immediate protections, recourse, and justice against intolerance.

Today’s Action: Support Native Americans on two bills – vote is tomorrow!

The Wampanoag Tribe are well-known for their place at the table at the first Thanksgiving – which, by the way, was probably very different than the elementary school textbook image in your head. Once numbering 50,000-100,000 before white settlers, there are now only 4000-5000 Wampanoag left.

The Mashpee Wampanoag only gained land in 2015 under President Obama, and have built schools, housing projects, and their own police and courts systems in the years since, with plans for a casino to fund. But a federal judge has ruled that the Obama administration acted outside its authority and Trump is choosing not to defend the tribe, leaving the Mashpee Wampanoag in legal limbo and without their due sovereignty.

And why is Trump not acting on behalf of this tribe? Because a buddy of his also a lobbyist for a nearby casino and doesn’t want the competition. And Trump hid his corruption with a racist tweet, because racism is more acceptable to his base. Seriously.

We are long overdue giving sovereignty to Native tribes in our country, and treating them as independent nations (just as we do other nations). This will almost certainly not happen under Trump – but passing these two bills are a first step in that direction, showing Republicans and Democrats alike that the treatment and respect of our indigenous populations should be a priority as we look at 2020.